Fuel-Efficient Cabs Not Passing On The Savings

Every time you hop into a taxi, you pay an extra 50 cents or $1, depending on gas prices. CBS 2's Dorothy Tucker reports that nearly 500 cab drivers are already saving money on gas and don't really need your hard-earned money.

But that doesn't stop them from taking it.

When it's tacked onto your cab fare, the extra 50-cent gasoline surcharge may not seem like much, but if you're Kevin Quach, it adds up.

"I take a taxi every day to work, every day back from work -- then every day to dinner, then back from dinner," he said. "At least four or five six taxis a day."

Quach figures he easily spends $55 a month, or more than $700 a year, on surcharges. And some of it goes to cabbies like Eric Collins, who are driving hybrids, such as Scions and other fuel-efficient cars. They already are saving money on gas.

"I used to drive the Crown Vic or the police car," he said. "I was buying gas for $50 a day, and now I'm buying $16 dollars a day, so it's a huge difference. I save about 30 bucks."

Of the 6,800 taxis on the roads, nearly 500 are fuel-efficient vehicles. Collins doesn't think it's wrong to still charge customers the surcharge.

"If the city says I can charge, I gotta keep charging," he said.

The city gave taxi drivers the right to collect a gas surcharge in 2008. Commissioner Norma Reyes has no intention of changing the rules to exempt fuel-efficient taxis from collecting the extra change.

She says it still costs the cabbie money to operate the vehicle. Plus, says Reyes, there's the additional wear and tear when any vehicle is used as a taxi.

"Any car, the longer you use it and as many times as you use it, the functions of the car, the mechanics of the car, slows down, so the fuel is not as efficient," she said.

Cabbies also argue that they pay more to buy hybrids, or some pay extra to lease them.

"What I'm saving for gas is going to the company," Thomas Onwka, a cabbie, said.

Passengers aren't sympathetic.

"It's a business expense, and they should anticipate that so we shouldn't have to be forking out the extra money for it," Patrick Windle said.

You may soon be forking out more money. Right now, the surcharge is 50 cents, but if the price of gas gets to $3.20 -- and it's close -- the surcharge will jump to $1.

One cab company, Carriage Cab, is getting federal grant money -- $2,000 for each hybrid it buys. Another, Yellow Cab, is getting funds to buy alternative gas vehicles and plans to buy 25 soon.